February 23, 2016

FEBRUARY 23, 2016 | VOLUME XCVII | ISSUE XX PARTYING IN LA SINCE 1918

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NEWS

CULTURE

OPINIONS

SPORTS

Sustainability report highlights UBC’s green campus

Grammy winners at the Chan Centre

The BoG needs to act on climate change investment risk

Meet the UBC 2016 Hall of Fame Inductees

THE UBYSSEY

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TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

YOUR GUIDE TO UBC EVENTS & PEOPLE

EVENTS

2

OUR CAMPUS

Gunjan Mhapankar wins Queen’s Young Leaders Award for community service video project THURS 25 CiTR FUNDRIVE 6 P.M. @ THE PIT

Come by to party, celebrate, and raise money to help CiTR continue providing great content and opportunity for students.

$5

SAT 27 THE CENTENNIAL GALA 5:30 A.M. @ THE NEST

You are cordially invited by the Science Undergraduate Society to participate in the gala held in the Great Hall. Look nice.

$35

PHOTO COURTESY GUNJAN MHAPANKAR

Gunjan Mhapankar moved to Vancouver from Mumbai when she was 15.

Andrea Gonzalez Staff Writer

MARCH 4 EVOLUTION 8:30 P.M. @ THE NEST

Not a dance competition, not a marathon but a DANCE-ATHON. Look nice, party and drink lots of beer.

$10 / SPECIAL PRICES FOR TEAMS

ON THE COVER PHOTO/ART BY Kosta Prodanovic

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When they arrived in Vancouver from Mumbai, Gunjan Mhapankar — 15 at the time — and her family came face to face with the lack of social support for immigrant groups in the city. Now a fourth-year microbiology and immunology student, Mhapankar devotes herself to bringing about social change to help vulnerable groups in Vancouver that are disconnected from community support.

From fundraising for the Greater Vancouver Food Bank and volunteering for organizations like Science World and YWCA, to initiatives addressing unemployment, mental health and LGBTQ+ rights, Mhapankar has collaborated with over 20 different community-based organizations and non-profits in the Greater Vancouver region since her arrival in Canada.

“When I moved here from Mumbai, what struck me the most was not the cultural shock, but just the lack of social support,” recalled Mhapankar. “There’s a social network that you rely on and that you take for granted when you have it. So when you’re taken away from that and you’re put in a completely different city, it really makes you think about the importance of them and the role they play.”

This new perspective, alongside Vancouver’s stark economic inequality, motivated Mhapankar to become involved in community service. Her most recent venture — a digital storytelling project showcasing the essential community services offered by various local non-profit organizations — has received international recognition.

Mhapankar is one of only two Canadians awarded the 2016 Queen’s Young Leaders Award, which celebrates exceptional people aged 18-29 from across commonwealth countries who are taking the lead in their communities and using their skills to transform lives.

The digital storytelling project began with Mhapankar’s involvement in a reading break project with the non-profit organization BC211, which provides people with information and referral to community, government and social services in BC. “I started working with [BC211] for a small, three-day youth engagement project in which we were just going out and interviewing youth, especially youth who were underprivileged and multi-barrier — struggling with issues like addiction or homelessness — and asking them what they need to feel helped,” said Mhapankar.

Mhapankar acknowledged that while services are often made specifically for youths, decisions about them tend to occur without the youths’ involvement. With this in mind, Mhapankar and her team of 10 UBC students sought to go out into the community to find out how young people really wanted to be helped.

Along with her team, Mhapankar went to five organizations — including the Vancouver Mental Health Centre — and spoke to young people struggling with illnesses such as anorexia. They interviewed and filmed 10 people over the course of the three-day project. Having identified an existing need in the community to generate awareness and digital marketing content about social services in BC for youth, Gunjan decided that she was not ready to close the door on the video project.

“It was such a great project that I wanted to take it a bit further. I went to BC211 and I proposed that we expand the scope of the project,” said Mhapankar. “We applied for the Chapman Innovation grant, a grant up to $10,000 given to UBC students who want to do a project in the community.”

In partnership with BC211 and with the Chapman Innovation grant funding, Mhapankar interviewed members of nine different local

organizations performing essential work in the community, including QMUNITY, Richmond Youth Service Agency, Seniors Come Share Society, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and Positive Living BC, among others. Many of these nonprofit organizations lack funding for outreach and awareness building, especially via newer avenues of digital outreach. Mhapankar’s videos offered a new venue to highlight the important work they were doing to support the local community.

“Despite not coming from a film making background, the digital storytelling project and the small pilot project during reading week really opened up the gate to using digital video content as a way to empower social change,” said Mhapankar. “Having created these videos, I think that social media and digital media can service as a really powerful catalyst for social change, but [only] if it is channeled in the right direction.”

As part of the Queen’s Young Leaders Award package, Mhapankar will go to London for a one-week residential program in June. There, she will receive the award from the Queen herself in Buckingham Palace. In addition, Mhapankar will have the opportunity to network with a cohort of 60 other award-winners from around the world and meet global leaders and heads of social enterprises. There is also a training component in the form of an online training course, provided by the University of Cambridge, focused on fostering leadership and personal development.

“It’s really quite humbling.

I think this program is going to give me the opportunity to take this work that I have been doing with the community further and also allow me to gain access to resources that I can connect people to,” explained Mhapankar. “If it was just a piece of paper, it would have been so much less valuable than the rich experience that we are gaining right now.” U

PLAY A NEIGHBOURHOOD DESIGN GAME Come and test urban design tools and have a chance to win a 2016 iPad. Sign up at http://blogs.ubc.ca/ playaneighbourhooddesigngame/ Workshops will be 2.5 hours and run in March. See the schedule on our website.

All UBC students may participate so please invite your friends.

You’ll be fed!

A light lunch or dinner will be provided.

Contact: Professor Cynthia Girling cgirling@sala.ubc.ca

// NEWS

EDITORS EMMA PARTRIDGE + MOIRA WARBURTON

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

3

SUPPORT //

New communication strategies in the works to help resource groups to expand

FILE PHOTO KOSTA PRODANOVIC / THE UBYSSEY

The AMS is developing a set of strategies to help resource groups reach more people.

Joshua Azizi Senior Staff Writer

The AMS is developing a communications model for resource groups to use that will help the groups reach out to students in order to expand their memberships.

Resource groups are on-campus collectives within the AMS that are based around social justice issues. The groups’ intent is to provide supportive and respectful communities for students with identities, backgrounds or beliefs that have historically and systemically been discriminated against. Examples include Pride UBC, the Women’s Centre and Colour Connected.

The idea for the AMS to develop a model which various resource groups could use to promote themselves came about when one group — Colour Connected Against Racism UBC — wanted to expand its membership.

Colour Connected offers support and information to students who feel disempowered due to discrimination based on, but not limited to, racism.

According to Colour Connected President Hussain

Khan, there’s a communal aspect to the group as well.

“It’s also supposed to be like a space where students of colour or their allies can just come and chill,” he said, noting that although he frequently receives help from Colour Connected alumni, he’s currently the only official member of the group.

Khan is now working with the AMS to create a set of new communication strategies meant to attract students to the group.

These strategies will serve as a model for other resource groups to follow if they would like to use it.

Although it’s currently a work in progress, the model that’s being considered consists of three pillars. The first of these pillars is focused on visual media outreach to students, in which Colour Connected and any other groups that wish to can be promoted through social media, posters or AMS newsletters.

The second pillar is in-person outreach, which will focus on boothing and events that can engage students on the campus.

AMS Events Coordinator Asad Ali — who is working with Khan on setting up booths for Colour Connected — hopes to make

this part of the outreach more interactive than just handing out pamphlets to people on the street. One activity he’s considering doing with Colour Connected, which got a positive response from students on previous occasions, is called Pop the Stigma.

“We wrote a stigma down [on a balloon] and then you popped it,” he said. “You felt very empowered after that and we just thought we’d bring in something like that to make it more interactive.”

The final pillar involves longterm structural planning, in which involved parties will discuss how to ensure the future success and stability of each group. Although this model is offered to groups, they will not be obligated to use it.

“I really think it’s important to respect the autonomy for our resource groups and ensure that they have the freedom to operate in whatever capacity and form that they choose,” said AMS VP Admin Ava Nasiri. “[But] any time the resource groups or any specific resource group has an appetite or expresses a need for a certain type of support, we’re more than happy to go above and beyond.” U

ANNUAL TUITION CONSULTATION We want to hear from you

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4 | News |

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

PRANKINGS //

A look back at UBC’s infamous engineering pranks

AGGRESSIVELY GREEN //

Emma Partridge News Editor

At UBC, engineering pranks are nothing short of legend. In part, this is because of how long engineering pranks have been happening.

According to hEUStory, a website devoted to the pranks, 1956-57 was a good year for pranking. That academic year, horses were rented and rode down Main Mall —one Arts student was “sacrificed” at the end in honour of the procession. A Volkswagen Beetle also made an appearance — lodged between two columns of an engineering building.

According to Hans Seidemann, an engineering student at UBC from 2009 to 2014, the entertainment value has to be mixed with the right amount of practicality. Executing a prank isn’t always as clean as it looks by a perfectly positioned car at a high altitude.

“The one on the clock tower was three years in the making — a year of planning, a failure and then another year to re-do,” said Bill Richardson, engineering student at UBC in the early ’80s, who noted that his knowledge is simply hypothetical and the EUS can’t be considered responsible for the incidences.

According to Richardson, the car-on-the-clock-tower succeeded a second time by taking it apart, hoisting everything up and reassembling it all once in place.

Richardson has sorted engineering pranks into three categories — the car on top of the clock tower is category one.

Number two is leaving something

FILE PHOTO GEOFF LISTER/THE UBYSSEY

Pranks are an integral part of engineering culture at UBC.

that can’t be removed. Then, his personal favourite is called “switch and bait. That is where something appears to be very wrong, but it isn’t.”

A good example of the latter is the “statue stunt.” Engineers built a number of ugly statues which were then left around campus. Once everyone had a chance to notice the additions, a letter writing campaign began, asking that the statues be removed. The arts community on campus was horrified and equally so when they found out the engineers had then gone ahead and destroyed them anyway.

Some pranks never quite come to fruition. Seidemann said it’s just a process of figuring out the limitations once work has begun on a project.

Some of the ideas that were thrown out remain just as entertaining in the realm of possibility.

One idea was to paint a sheet of plywood black and attach Christmas lights to reflect the time so the contraption appeared as a massive, digital clock. The hope was then to hoist the “clock” over the analog clock face of our clock tower, but unfortunately wind kept snagging

the contraption and smashing the the mechanics.

Some that may have faded to distant memory are the Omar pranks.

According to Richardson, Forestry had a car nicknamed Omar, which was ceremoniously destroyed every year in some way or another.

One year, Omar was placed outside of a main library and covered with concrete with two rubber gloves poking out to give the impression someone was buried underneath.

“It just stayed there all year ... because it was so heavy. But then during Engineering Week, some people came and opened the door,” said Richardson. “[They] smashed the very thin layer of concrete that was there and shovelled all the dirt out, inflated the tires, started it up and drove away.”

However, does the pranking represent more than a disruption someone’s day? According to Seidemann, yes.

“The best value of the pranks is they demonstrate in a really tangible way what you are doing when you’re getting an engineering degree,” he said. U

THURSDAY

FEB 25 VANCOUVER

VANCOUVER CONVENTION CENTRE 3 pm - 7 pm SEMINARS start at 2 pm VICTORIA

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www.studyandgoabroad.com

UBC’s campus is committed to sustainability.

FILE PHOTO KAI JACOBSON/THE UBYSSEY

UBC releases annual sustainability report Aidan Qualizza Staff Writer

UBC has released its 2014-2015 sustainability report. This report is used as a benchmark for future initiatives on campuses across the globe, as UBC is at the forefront of sustainability research and action.

The university has made a commitment to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions through a series of goals which the director of Communication and Community Engagement of the UBC Sustainability Initiative, Victoria Smith, described as “aggressive” — 33 per cent by 2015, 67 per cent by 2020 and 100 per cent by 2050. Each year, the UBC Sustainability Initiative releases a report that summarizes gains towards these goals.

The last academic year marked significant gains in productivity of the community’s sustainable initiatives.

“We took [the report] to the board in December and I think we keyed in on a couple of very significant achievements from our previous year,” said Smith, citing the university’s reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, sustainability-related forcredit courses and the scholars’ program, which allow more hands-on learning opportunities for graduate students.

The community is on track to accomplishing their goals, thanks in part to LEED-certified construction across campus and the steam-to-hot water heating conversion process occurring in 130 of UBC’s buildings, among other initiatives. The new hot water heating systems will reduce the university’s total greenhouse gas emissions by 22 per cent, energy use by 24 per cent and operation cost by $5.5 million per year.

All of UBC’s faculties have made a commitment to integrating sustainability-related course material into their existing curriculum. The goal is to give every undergraduate student enrolled at UBC the opportunity to take a minor in sustainability, regardless of their faculty, department or academic discipline. As of the 2014-2015 academic year, there are 636 courses, up from 500 the year before available to every student.

“Many other universities will have a dedicated sustainability college or a degree program,” said Smith. “But we think that everyone should be contemplating and thinking about sustainability, regardless if they are taking mechanical engineering or medieval history.”

The graduate student internship program is an opportunity for graduate students from any faculty to work on issues related to the city of Vancouver’s sustainability initiatives. The program encourages dialogue on sustainability issues in the city through new emerging applied research opportunities for students.

“We have expanded our thinking and our available internship opportunities for grad students. We have grown the number of student opportunities with the city … and diversified the opportunities to work with folks like BC Hydro, Fortis and the Musqueam Nation,” said Smith.

This program allows the UBC community to contribute to research and action on sustainability issues that are larger than the Point Grey campus, but those which affect the entire Vancouver region.

“The dominant narrative surrounding sustainability over the past few decades has been … that we have a limited planet with limited resources and the more we use, the more it becomes inherently unsustainable.” said Smith. UBC is attempting to make this narrative more accessible through the three pillars of the new sustainability report — teaching learning research, operations infrastructure and community — all of which encompass social, economics and environmental sustainability.

The narrative at UBC is being changed from focusing on exclusively nature-based preservation towards a more holistic, humanist narrative — even if students are not aware of it. The UBC Sustainability Initiative is “getting beyond natural resources and damage limitation,” said Smith. “As a global leader of sustainability … we get to push the thinking on this a bit and it’s exciting.” U

// CULTURE

EDITOR OLIVIA LAW

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

TECH //

New glove technology helps skiiers stay safe Paula Duhatschek Senior Staff Writer

There are a million ways to ruin your phone while skiing or snowboarding.

You can drop it on the chairlift, lose it in deep snow, crack the screen, get it wet or drain the battery in subzero temperatures.

Ramin Sahebjavaher, veteran skier and co-founder of YodelTECH Inc., knew there had to be a better way.

“Right now, me and my brother ski and snowboard a lot. [This company] came out of our own frustrations that we felt on the mountain. After we felt those frustrations for many years, we finally decided to do something about it and that’s when we started YodelTECH,” he said.

The company’s first product is YodelUp, an on-glove wearable that acts as a sort of hybrid cell phone and walkie-talkie. The device connects to users’ cell phones using Bluetooth technology, allowing skiers and snowboarders to seamlessly play music and chat while on the mountain. Best of all, winter is cold and YodelUp lets you keep your gloves on while you use it.

While the product is mostly just for fun, better communication can also mean better safety for skiers and snowboarders.

“Imagine you’re flying down the mountain and someone’s behind

UBC filmmaker wins at festival

PHOTO COURTESY RAMI KATZ

Cecilia Mesquita Contributor The device’s Kickstarter campaign begins this month.

you. You’re both listening to this device and you’ve just barely made it past a really big rock — you can immediately warn your friends,” he said. “Imagine taking your glove off and trying to call them — there’s no guarantee they’ll hear that. So this opens up a lot of possibilities to improve safety.”

Ramin holds a PhD in engineering from UBC and previously worked with UmbraCity, the umbrella sharing service that launched on campus this fall. He’s become a bit of a serial entrepreneur, having already established a consulting firm that specializes in automation, medical devices and electronics.

After leaving UmbraCity this summer, Ramin began working on YodelTECH Inc. with his brother, Darius. The brothers are still running on savings and adrenaline — in true start-up fashion, the company headquarters are currently located in their parents’ garage.

Now the pair need cash to keep moving forward with production.

Although they had hoped to fund the project entirely on their own, the material costs associated with the device soon made that impossible. Instead, they’ve turned to crowdfunding. The brothers are launching a Kickstarter campaign on February 24 that aims to raise

PHOTO COURTESY YODELUP

$60,000 for up-front tooling and manufacturing costs.

“If we’re successful, we’ll have the money to basically start manufacturing right away and we’ll be able to ship by next ski season,” said Ramin.

Ramin also hopes to build hype for the product via an online yodeling competition. Participants can enter to win a variety of ski prizes by uploading a video of themselves yodeling to the YodelUp Facebook page.

Those interested in the competition are encouraged to revisit the goatherd scene from The Sound of Music and to learn more online. U

Sharing secrets online, onstage

PHOTO COURTESY POST SECRET

Warren has been contacted by the FBI over ‘confessions’ found on his site.

For some students, visiting Facebook pages like UBC Confessions can be addictive, especially with the variety of anonymous admissions and the crazy comments section that follows. Long before any of that though, Frank Warren was already inviting people to share their anonymous confessions through good old-fashioned snail mail.

Warren is the founder of Post Secret — an online blog where anyone is invited to anonymously send their secrets through traditional, decorated postcards. These secrets can be lighthearted ones such as a barista confessing to serving decaf to

AWARDS //

The film literally explores light.

THEATRE //

Miguel Santa Maria Senior Staff Writer

5

rude customers. They can also be very serious ones that deal with suicide and beyond, which has led to police and even the FBI contacting Warren multiple times.

Afterwards, said confessions are eventually posted onto his blog.

This all started an entire decade ago and, at the time, the website blew up in the popular media. Although the blog is not nearly mentioned as much nowadays, this has not stopped the mail from coming in.

“Ten years later, they haven’t stopped. I feel like I accidentally tapped into something that had been there the whole time … and I don’t think there’s any way to turn it off,” said Warren.

He added that this likely stems from a combination of elements

including the “true anonymity” within postcards compared to a digital footprint online and the way the website respectfully approaches these admissions.

“I treat everybody’s secret with respect. I use my home address, not a P.O. box, and I think all those things help me earn the trust of people that tell me the deepest stories, the funniest confessions and the deepest admissions.”

Right now, Warren is currently on tour with Post Secret: The Show — an on-stage iteration of the concept where sent secrets are re-enacted or read out through actors. Audiences are also invited to participate, whether through acting within these skits themselves or sending their own secrets right before the show starts. The show itself is already running here in Vancouver and will be until early next month.

Among those vast amounts of secrets he’s collected, Warren has also seen his fair share of ones he believes come from young students. It is within these particular postcards that he sees recurring trends of anxiety and hopefulness.

“I get a lot of secrets from young people especially and one of the most frequent secrets I get is one that describes a search for that one person who they can tell their secrets to and be their full and true selves,” said Warren.

“I also get hopeful secrets like marriage proposals [and] hidden acts of kindness that people have done for each other.”

With that said, Warren frequently provides talks to students in colleges and universities around North America.

He was previously a guest speaker in a UBC Student Leadership Conference back in 2013. During that talk, Warren discussed a number of important elements regarding secrets that students can use as a learning experience. This includes secrets as a “currency of intimacy” that brings a wide range people together and how the internet itself has become an integral part of catalyzing that.

Warren especially sees these elements in terms of Facebook pages like UBC Confessions bringing university students together.

“I think that’s the natural progression,” he said. “It’s just like how the Post Secret show is a way to bring the community out into the physical world. [The] show ... brings together people who are fans of the website and book, and allows them to interact and share some of [these stories].”

Overall, whether through his websites, his shows or the various university pages out there, Warren hopes the value of secrets — whether keeping or sharing them — is further recognized.

“There [are] the secrets that we keep from others and the secrets that we hide from ourselves,” he said. “If we can find the courage to share some of our secrets to people we trust, I think that allows us to not just form deeper relationships, but understand ourselves better.” U

The winner for the second week of February’s Reel 13 online short film festival was director and producer Rami Katz, a current master’s student at UBC. The idea for the short film surged a year ago when Katz teamed up with a group of friends for a challenge that presents opportunities to write, direct, shoot and edit a short documentary in five days based on the criteria given by the organization.

The short documentary, An Exploration of Light, consists of interweaving scientific interviews with philosophical quips. The short film explores the different ways humans perceive and interact with light.

Katz said his co-producer and composer, Ben Leyland, came up with the idea. “[The original concept was to] do something about light, the way it works and how it is perceived,” said Katz.

Making a science-based documentary gave him and the team the opportunity to interview physicists and learn something, but also to try to and create something cool and visual.

The original documentary was reedited for an entire year before the second version, which is the one that won the Reel 13 short film festival.

The festival is an online submission contest. The organization picks up to three finalists every week and lets people vote online on their favourite short film for five days.

As An Exploration of Light won the online voting, the short documentary was screened on 13 — a PBS flagship station in New York City — on February 13.

Katz said that he was not expecting the short film to go that far. When questioned as to why, he said that his film gained the appreciation of the public largely due to all the work that was put into it over a year in re-editing the film and being satisfied with the final product.

The re-edition was technical as the team shot more scenes for the final version with clearer and smoother effects. In the first version, a third interviewee had to be completely taken out to keep the film visual.

Katz is in the process of working on his master’s thesis film documentary about the life and work of Jack O’Dell. O’Dell, an influential figure in the AfricanAmerican Civil Rights Movement, is now 92 years of age and lives in Vancouver, BC. In this project, O’Dell tells his story and reflects on current civil rights issues. Katz said that this project would be completed in 2017. U

6 | features |

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

the high in higher education You probably know a student who has taken study drugs to cram at least once.

Is it cheating?

They can energize and boost motivation, but won’t help you learn better.

Words Samantha McCabe and Vassilena Sharlandjieva Art Aiken Lao

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

U

nder the pressure of a deadline, a pill of Adderall often looks to Phil* like his only option for

success.

“It’s not heroin,” the second-year UBC kinesiology student said of the drug commonly prescribed to treat Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Phil, who is not diagnosed with ADHD, uses Adderall as a study aid instead. “Let’s just say it was last minute, I didn’t study properly. I don’t use it to study all the time. But if I’m really in the need of something that could help me out with cramming, I’ll use it.”

Phil is no oddity. Nearly four per cent of Canadian post-secondary students take such stimulants without a prescription, according to a 2013 study by the United States National College Health Assessment.

The most popular “study drugs” include Adderall — an amphetaminebased medication — and Ritalin — a central nervous system stimulant which works by inducing a buildup of dopamine, a vital neurotransmitter for attention and motivation. Both are commonly used to treat ADHD and must be prescribed by a physician.

Sometimes students will obtain unmarked pills, simply trusting their dealers when they say what they provide is Adderall. Phil described paying $10 for each unmarked pill that he purchased, despite recognizing that the pills were different in appearance from the prescribed Adderall he had taken previously. He was stressed about an upcoming exam for a class that he was barely passing and the pills came from a friend. In the end, he took the chance.

Possessing and using Adderall or Ritalin without a prescription are illegal in Canada, but that isn’t stopping students from using them for nonmedical reasons. Most students like Phil who use them to study will get them from friends or other students who have prescriptions, paying between $5 and $20 per pill.

WHAT’S THE DRAW? It’s illegal and expensive, but with the pressure of academics, students continue to seek a leg up on coursework and tests because the drug helps them sustain focus. Phil thought he did much better on the final that he wrote after studying on the unmarked Adderall pill, and he’s not the only one to appreciate the drug’s effects.

“I couldn’t believe how well they work. You sit down and concentrate for eight hours or so without feeling the need for breaks or wanting to stop,” a third-year arts and economics student at McGill University, who used Ritalin, said in an interview for The Globe and Mail.

“My friend has ADHD, but hates taking Adderall because she says it changes her personality, so she sells it for $10 a cap,” Veronica, a second-year Queen’s University student studying global development and environment science, told The Ubyssey. “She actually makes a lot of money around exam time.”

WHAT DO UNIVERSITIES THINK ABOUT IT? Students at Canadian universities are hardly the only ones taking non-prescribed study drugs. Based

on a 2012 survey, researchers at the American Society of Pediatrics estimated that nearly one in five students at an Ivy League university take unprescribed medication to study and a third of these students see no ethical problem with it. A quarter of the students had used study drugs eight times or more. Few universities deal with the issue directly. However, one that does is Duke University in the United States, which has explicitly banned “the unauthorized use of prescription medication to enhance academic performance” under their policy on academic dishonesty.

But at UBC, although possessing or selling controlled substances is prohibited under the Student Code of Conduct, the use of study drugs specifically is not addressed in the academic misconduct policies.

University administrators were not available to comment on the issue, but UBC Public Affairs responded to The Ubyssey’s questions about how the university views the use of study drugs.

“No cases have ever been brought forward alleging that a student cheated by using unauthorized study drugs …

like that,” said Michael, a second-year mechanical engineering student at UBC. “But I stuck with and completely zoned in on what I was working on. It allowed me to work for longer without getting bored or distracted.”

DO STUDY DRUGS WORK AS STUDENTS THINK THEY DO? Leading research on psychostimulants conducted by neuroscientist Martha Farah has found that the cognitive benefits are limited. Instead, researchers propose that the perceived benefits have more to do with motivation as opposed to cognition — users experience elevated alertness, energy and more interest in completing a task, while cognitive skills like processing and manipulating information are not improved in any significant way.

Eric Racine, director of the Neuroethics Research Unit at the Institut de Recherche Clinique de Montréal, explained that there isn’t enough scientific evidence suggesting that these drugs are “cognitive enhancers” and will not give users an unfair advantage.

“My right lung would hurt and then my heart was, like, palpitating. My way of looking at it was, ‘Hey, I really need this.’” so it is unclear whether the allegation would be accepted and addressed under the academic misconduct process,” Leslie Dickens, associate director of public affairs at UBC, wrote in an email to The Ubyssey.

Confronting study drugs as a form of cheating wouldn’t be straightforward. Dickens noted that it would be difficult to prove if drugs were taken and that, ultimately, the student is not committing plagiarism since they are producing their own work as opposed to using someone else’s.

But the most important consideration in whether study drugs should be dealt with as cheating by the university is whether, and to what extent, study drugs actually improve academic performance.

Some students who regularly take study drugs reported to The Ubyssey that they do not help for all types of studying. Veronica, the Queen’s University student, shared her experience of using Adderall to take ineffective notes.

“The next day, I’ll look back on my notes and they are so in depth that they aren’t helpful at all and I hadn’t retained any information as I wrote them,” she explained. “Some people I know take it when they are researching for their papers, but won’t take it to study for exams.”

Adderall users reap the advantages of sustained focus but the drugs do not improve thinking and learning skills.

“It doesn’t make me smarter or able to make connections better or anything

“For those that are fearing widespread use and are fearing potentially to lose a competitive edge, I would probably say don’t overworry because, as far as we know from the systematic reviews, the advantages could be very minimal and the effects could be more on motivation than actually on cognition,” said Racine.

If a boost in motivation and energy is all Adderall users can expect to gain, using study drugs can be considered similar to drinking coffee — save that the drugs are illegal and riskier.

“There’s a sense in which using drugs is a shortcut to success. But caffeine is a drug. It’s the most widely-used drug on the planet,” said Peter Reiner, a neuroscience professor and scholar in neuroethics at UBC. “There is a widely held perception that taking the drugs is bad whereas coffee is okay,” he added. “In principle, there’s no real difference between the two, except all the evidence is that caffeine is a little more effective than Adderall.”

NO EFFECTS WITHOUT SIDE EFFECTS Still, students continue to risk dangerous side effects in favour of the stimulating Adderall effect.

Restlessness, difficulty falling or staying asleep, uncontrollable shaking of a part of the body and headaches are risks that can go hand in hand with the concentration boost. More severe side effects can include shortness of breath, chest pain, mild paranoia and delusions. Reiner said there is no way

| features | 7

to predict how any individual will react to the drugs.

“I would breathe and my right lung would just kind of hurt, and then … my heart was, like, palpitating,” acknowledged Phil. But he doesn’t see these side effects as a great deterrent to his study drug usage. “It’s all about the way you look at it. My way of looking at it was, ‘Hey, I really need this.’”

Michael also experienced side effects after taking an unmarked pill that his dealer claimed was Adderall.

“I had really vivid, frightening dreams,” he said. “To me, it seems like something that doesn’t make sense to be used so casually.”

The full extent of the drugs’ consequences are still unclear even to researchers. “We know neither the long-term nor the short-term effects, because there have been no real studies of the population of people without a prescription,” Reiner said. “It’s kind of a black hole in our knowledge.”

ARE THE RISKS WORTH IT? Shira Sneg, a fifth-year UBCO student, student senator and leader of several mental health initiatives, is diagnosed with ADHD and admits she is uncomfortable with the idea that healthy students feel the need to take drugs designed to treat her condition to help their studying.

“What it points at is the pressure of what it’s like to be a student today and what’s demanded of you,” she said, faulting the expectation that university students will not only have good grades, but participate extracurricular activities and demonstrate that they are well-rounded. The solution to academic pressure, she believes, is improving mental health rather than ADHD drugs.

Reiner notes that the use of study drugs plays into the strong societal expectations felt by students to do well academically.

“There is a concern that we are already, as a society, putting too much of an emphasis on success of various kinds and that the pressure to succeed is not improving the quality of our lives,” said Reiner. “There is a reasonable argument that adding cognitive enhancers into the mix will only exacerbate that pressure on us all to succeed.”

Most students have trouble concentrating while studying throughout their hectic academic careers. So when the advantages enjoyed by those using Adderall are pitted against students relying on self-discipline alone, the competition can seem dauntingly uneven. Not everyone can, or is willing to, access the drug’s benefits.

When in dire need of a concentration boost in order to study, Phil will take an Adderall pill.

He acknowledges the associated downsides — he even experiences some of them himself — but “a whole bunch of people are doing it, a bunch of people are selling it.” If UBC does not view it as cheating, it begs the question — why not? U *The names of the students who shared their experiences of using study drugs without prescriptions have been changed.

8 | CULTURE |

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

MOVIES //

CONCERT //

Finding significance in sneaky hobbitses

ILLUSTRATION JULIAN YU / THE UBYSSEY

Studies show we can find meaning in almost anything.

Paula Duhatschek Senior Staff Writer

In 2015, the year’s highest grossing films were Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Jurassic World and The Avengers: Age of Ultron. Each of these movies were a lot like the other two — they were all in the fantasy or sci-fi genre, they were disgustingly profitable and they had been produced as part of previously established film franchises. It can be easy to interpret this trend as the end of moviemaking and the emergence of a film industry that produces only easily digestible blockbusters and feature-length toy commercials.

However, Dr. Ernest Mathijs, associate head of UBC’s Department of Theatre and Film, has a surprising counterpoint — it’s not that big of a deal.

For the past year, Dr. Mathijs has been conducting the world’s largest audience research survey based on Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy.

The World Hobbit Project was done in collaboration between 146 scholars from around the world who distributed the survey to over 35,000 respondents in 45 countries and 30 languages.

The study’s primary goal was to find out what fantasy movies mean to people today. In sifting through the results, Dr. Mathijs found that people strongly believe that these movies help to enrich the imagination.

“That surprised us because Hollywood, when it adopts the fantasy world, is often accused of narrowing the imagination. Well, our audiences disagree with that. We saw that audiences make connections

between terrorism, what happens in the world, the things that are in the news and what you see in fantasy,” he said.

Mathijs believes that humans are “meaning-seeking creatures,” who will find significance in whatever material they’re given.

Although watching The Hobbit or Harry Potter may not feel like a particularly stimulating activity, he says that people may in fact work harder when watching a fantasy movie to develop a sophisticated interpretation.

“It’s the opposite of what we usually say, that fantasy dumbs down. No. In this case, fantasy gives you the opportunity to show off just how smart you are.”

Nevertheless, it can feel unfortunate that the film industry has become dominated by a handful of glossy franchises. Mathijs says that, in recent years, the selection of widely available films has shrunk to a few “must-see” movies that come out in the summer, the early fall and at Christmastime. By monopolizing the industry, these blockbusters have squeezed out just about everything else.

“Fantasy blockbusters in particular have proven that they can return an investment. They make profits, so that’s what Hollywood will do. It seems like you can’t make them for less than 200, 300 million dollars and that means that that money isn’t going to other films,” he said.

Still, Dr. Mathijs isn’t one for lamentation.

“There’s a worry there. But you know what? If audiences through that limited supply can still feel that their imagination is enriched, maybe it’s not too big of a problem.” U

GOD THE BRAIN & PARADOX WITH

THE LAING LECTURES 2016

IAIN MCGILCHRIST

MAR 9 7:30 PM

WHERE SHALL I GO FOR TRUTH? MAR 10 11:30 AM

WHAT BRAINS CAN AND CAN’T TEACH US ABOUT GOD MAR 10 7:30 PM

THE POWER OF NO

Regent College 5800 University Blvd (on the UBC campus)

Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World explores the nature of the brain’s two hemispheres, their relationship to one another, and their role in shaping our consciousness and our culture.

rgnt.net/laing2016

The duo are taking audiences back in time.

PHOTO COURTESY CHAN CENTRE

Grammy award-winning artists coming to Chan Centre Jaenna Calingasan Contributor

Get ready to dance. Get ready to sing. Get ready to jazz.

On February 27, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts welcomes Dee Dee Bridgewater, Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra. This era’s world-renowned jazz vocalist (Bridgewater) and bandleader/ trumpeter (Mayfield) will take us back to the musical history of New Orleans, the birthplace of jazz, giving us the party of another era.

“We try to bring in some of the best artists in the world and reflect a lot of the values of UBC through performing arts and music,” said Joyce Hinton, the co-managing director of the Chan Centre, who is excited to present this concert as part of their series. “I’ve always wanted to present Dee Dee Bridgewater, who’s played with so many great jazz artists. When I heard that she’s going to be with Irvin Mayfield and the New Orleans’s Jazz Orchestra, I just jumped on it right away.”

As a Tony award and multiGrammy award winning singer, Dee Dee Bridgewater has performed with the big jazz greats such as Sonny Rollins, Dizzy Gillespie, Dexter Gordon and Max Roach, to name a few. Born in Memphis and raised in Michigan, this performer has re-envisioned jazz classics for over four decades.

“She uses her voice in such different ways. She’s very playful on stage and has this incredible connection with Irvin,” said Hinton.

Hailing from New Orleans, Mayfield, a Grammy and Billboard music award winner, is a brilliant trumpeter, composer and bandleader is credited with 15 albums. After he founded the New Orleans Jazz Orchestra in 2003, Mayfield wanted to lift people’s spirits post-Katrina and celebrate the origins and futures of jazz. After opening a venue in New Orleans that focused on jazz and jazz education, he invited

Bridgewater to the opening. It was there that they put together the album, Dee Dee’s Feathers.

“The album is so well done, so joyful,” said Hinton. “This music is going to be accompanied by all these great instrumentalists and to have this fabulous singer and, of course, the phenomenal trumpeter is such a great opportunity for a memorable Saturday night.”

The New Orleans Jazz Orchestra’s includes five trumpets, five saxophones (alto, tenor and baritone), three trombones and the powerful play of the piano, banjo, guitar and the bass drum.

Led by the musical styling of Mayfield and Bridgewater will surely be a soul-reaching jazz experience.

“They take the well-loved songs of New Orleans and put their own spin on it,” adds Hinton. “The album just grabs you.”

First-time jazz listeners as well as jazz veterans can be excited for this concert. There is no doubt that this performance is a great opportunity for people in the UBC community to be introduced to jazz. A Night in New Orleans captures the playful vocals of Bridgewater in collaboration with Mayfield’s jazz orchestra and connects traditions of the old and modern musings of the new.

“They really wanted to lift up people’s spirits and bring a lot of joy — that’s what this music is.”

The Chan Centre also offers pre-concert talks that are free to anyone who purchases a ticket., Nou Dadoun, the host of CFRO’s A-Trane Radio Program, will give a talk this year about jazz and its unique sound, walking us through the history of jazz all the way towards the New Orleans performance later in the evening by Bridgewater and Mayfield.

Hinton said, “I know on February 27, people will stand because it is going to be impossible to sit down.” U

// OPINIONS

EDITOR JACK HAUEN

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

DIVESTMENT //

TRANSPARENCY //

It’s time for the Board of Governors to act on climate change investment risk

Re: “we were not bullied or pressured” broadcast email

act prudently and a duty of loyalty.

The fiduciary duty of loyalty requires BoG members to act in the long-term interests of the fund, to disclose relevant information and to keep beneficiaries informed of emerging risks to fund assets. The question now is: have Mr. Gordon and the other BoG members met the legal standard of care required of them under BC law in relation to climate risk assessment at the endowment?

FILE PHOTO KOSTA PRODANOVIC

Hamish Stewart Letter

The UBC Board of Governors (BoG) appears to be ignoring the advice of its own lawyers on the need to assess the investment risks linked to climate change and the transition to low carbon energy systems. A December legal memo to the BoG from national law firm Koskie Minsky advises that “[at] the security selection or investment decision-making level, all factors relevant to risk and return must be considered; if climate change is relevant to an investment and not too remote, it must be considered.”

Koskie Minsky lawyers are experts on the issue and published a report on climate change and fiduciary duty last year. This report concludes that “in making investment decisions, climate change denial is not an option, climate change risks must be taken into account...”

BoG members should be assessing and managing climaterelated investment risks to the endowment The BoG is brimming with fossil fuel industry expertise, which should be brought to bear on their analysis of climate risks to the endowment.

First, there is Chancellor Lindsay Gordon, former president and CEO of HSBC Bank Canada, who should be familiar with the legal parameters of the fiduciary duty of prudence.

HSBC has written extensively on carbon asset risk, including a 2015 report analyzing “How investors can manage increasing fossil fuel risks.”

The HSBC report provides details on how fossil fuel assets and related infrastructure investments may become stranded – rapidly lose value – as a result of three factors: climate change regulation, changing energy economics and energy innovation.

Then there is Martha Piper, the interim BoG president. Piper was

formerly on the board at Transalta, a heavily coal-exposed Alberta power utility whose management team has been pushed by investors to provide a plan for transitioning its business model to focus on renewable energy.

“

The BoG members’ apparent decision to ignore material risks to carbon-exposed companies in their endowment investment strategy indicates that perhaps: (a) they know something giant global investors like Blackrock and Aviva do not; or (b) that they are not doing their jobs as fiduciaries.”

BoG member David Sidoo may be living a stranded assets nightmare – his CEO role with junior exploration company East West Petroleum and past work with American Oil and Gas means that he should have the pulse of the oil and gas sector and would therefore be aware of the risks to the endowment from overexposure to declining industries and high-cost fossil fuel producers.

The BoG members’ apparent decision to ignore material risks to carbon-exposed companies in their endowment investment strategy indicates that perhaps: (a) they know something giant global investors like Blackrock and Aviva do not; or (b) that they are not doing their jobs as fiduciaries.

BoG members’ primary fiduciary duties to endowment beneficiaries are twofold: they have a duty to

Fiduciary duty after Paris – wilful blindness is no longer an option for BoG members As the BoG’s own lawyers stressed in their legal memo: “…in British Columbia, the Trustee Act requires a trustee to exercise the care, skill, diligence and judgment that a prudent investor would exercise in making investments ... trustees are required to make decisions on an informed basis, after conducting appropriate due diligence including retaining specialized advice…”

Under current circumstances with Lindsay Gordon’s own bank acknowledging that high-cost fossil fuels and coal companies in OECD economies are in terminal decline, a “prudent investor” would be able to clearly articulate a portfolio climate and carbon risk strategy to preserve scheme assets in the best interests of their beneficiaries. Many are already doing so.

The BoG appears to have failed to undertake even basic due diligence on climate risk, in apparent breach of the duty of prudence.

In addition to the duties of loyalty and prudence, BoG members have a duty of impartiality. According to their lawyers: “[At] a minimum, the duty of impartiality implies that short-term interests ought not to be privileged over long-term interests, requiring sufficient attention to systemic risks.”

In their apparent decision to ignore climate risks to the endowment fund, and to instead take short-term bets on carbonexposed investments that will almost certainly lose value as 195 countries implement the Paris Agreement emissions reductions targets, the BoG members appear to be in breach of the duty of impartiality. U Hamish Stewart is a UBC alumnus and concerned donor.

MEWS & APARTMENTS 57TH & GRANVILLE KERRISDALE

Nassif Ghoussoub Letter

Dear elected members of the UBC Board of Governors, Last Tuesday, more than 50,000 faculty, students and staff members at UBC received an email signed by the eight of you. We are grateful that you have decided to join this new era of transparency and openness at UBC. Your letter, however, raises more questions than answers. It feels, like so many recent broadcast emails, both selective and defensive.

I am curious who has given you the go-ahead — and why now? — to break, though selectively, the confidentiality agreements you protected yourselves behind so vehemently last fall. Why have you spoken to some aspects of what happened last year and not others?

In trying to understand what your vote really meant, we can forgo the possibility that the president resigned voluntarily as otherwise your votes would be immaterial.

Instead, it appears, based on recently released documents, that he was coerced into resignation by a small group of governors. Did you know about this coercion? One can only hope that those trying to drive him out didn’t use a “we have the votes” type of argument before you had even fully discussed the issue and voted. Did you actively question the lack of due and legal process? If not, then you are complicit in having voted in support of an illegitimate process, no matter what you felt to be the merits of the case.

Your colleagues are interested in due process, accountability and transparency. These are not only demands from the curious among us. These are legal requirements specifically designed to avoid secret meetings and Star Chamberlike proceedings. And you, yourselves, have given us reasons to think that unconscionable things were going on.

This was amply spelled out by this AMS statement: “That duly elected student representatives from both campuses appear to have not been rightfully involved in key conversations leading to Dr. Gupta’s resignation.” How should

9

we understand the contradiction between this conclusion and your broadcast email? Should we conclude from this that the other five elected members were involved in these key conversations? Or perhaps concern about the statement from the AMS, with its potentially serious legal implications, is behind this broadcast email?

Also troubling are the two “mea culpas” in as many days by board member, Professor Richard Johnston. Why did he wait until the release of your broadcast to share his doubts about the “pattern of meetings on short notice, meetings not advertised, meeting off-cycle and so on”? Some are saying that he should have asked more questions and not have voted in favour in light of what he himself describes as irregularities. Similarly, Johnson now admits that certain groups were deliberately excluded from a lacklustre consultation process about divestment while again attributing the lack of consultation and committee minutes to “different circumstances at the time.”

It’s clear from the recent strong support for a vote of non-confidence in the board that The Times They Are A-Changin’. To those of us still wondering whether board members were briefed enough to decide what was in “the best interest” of the university, the (unintentional) leaks were providential. We now know what and how the prosecution, led by the previous board chair, presented their case against the previous president — “The low employee morale on campus, the relationship challenges with your key stakeholders and the simmering external reputational risks developing as a result of these challenges.” It appears to many of your colleagues on campus that these were not the realities prior to last August, but are what’s happening right now.

In the “best interests of the university,” we ask that you support the call for an external review of board procedures and structures, and a suspension of the presidential search pending this review. Only then can we move forward. U Nassif Ghoussoub is a professor of mathematics at UBC.

Be heard.

Send rants / arguments / love letters to opinions@ubyssey.ca

U

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// SPORTS+REC

EDITOR KOBY MICHAELS

BASKETBALL//

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

10

SOFTBALL //

Mackenzie Siddall on family, softball and overcoming adversity

PHOTO KOBY MICHAELS/THE UBYSSEY

Lee and Parkin both graduate this year and only have the playoffs left with the ‘Birds.

Lee and Parkin are not finished with the ’Birds yet Koby Michaels Sports and Rec Editor

For you, Saturday might have just been your last night of the homework-free bliss of reading week. For Diana Lee and Adrienne Parkin, it was so much more.

Lee and Parkin are both fifthyear athletes on the Thunderbirds women’s basketball team and Saturday was senior night.

If things hadn’t gone well, it could have been the pair’s last basketball game ever. But, thanks to Lee and Parkin, the team will be playing for at least one more week in the Canada West Championships.

Friday, Lee netted 32 of UBC’s 77 points to beat the University of Winnipeg. Saturday’s win secured the ’Birds a spot in the playoffs and a loss would have meant the end of Lee and Parkin’s careers.

“We want to focus on the game, then we can focus on the event afterwards. We have to get this win — or else.”

Lee and Parkin have taken very different paths to find their place with the T-Birds. Both are from the Greater Vancouver area, but Lee — a Master’s of Kinesiology student — played for Boise State University for three years, finishing her degree in a fourth.

“I had a little injury in there for about a year and came back,” explained Lee. “A little?” Parkin interjected.

“I had two herniated discs in my back. I tried to rehab it, but it didn’t really work. So I ended up getting surgery,” said Lee. “I moved back home [to North Vancouver], decided I wanted to give basketball another shot, gave Deb [Huband] a phone call and ended up here.”

Parkin, who played for Kitsilano Secondary before coming to UBC, has been a T-Bird for her whole collegiate career. She will be graduating with an undergraduate degree in kinesiology.

But both athletes aren’t thinking about graduation or post-

graduation life just yet. Saturday was all about winning just one more game and qualifying for the playoffs.

“I try not to think about it too much — I’m just going out there and playing. It’s starting to hit me now that it is senior night and I’ve had to write a speech and do all those different things. For the most part, I try to keep it out of my mind,” said Lee. “We’re not done yet. We want to go as far as we can.”

Between the two ’Birds, they’ve spent 10 years playing collegiate basketball in two countries, played two years on the Canadian Junior National Team and won a Canadian national championship with the BC provincial team.

One of their favourite memories together was winning the Canada West championship at home in 2015.

“If you were at that game, it was insane,” recalled Lee. “War Memorial was packed, we were down by four [points] with under a minute left.”

“She passed me the ball,” said Parkin.

“She shot a three to put us down by one. We fouled [and] the girl missed both of her free throws. We got the ball back and Kris Young scores a layup and we win the game. We led that whole game for maybe a total of two minutes. It was just an outrageous ... memory for me,” finished Lee. Parkin is unsure of whether she will give professional basketball in a Europe a go, and is looking into going back to graduate school in kinesiology or heading to law school. Lee wants to coach, though not professionally, and isn’t certain about her future plans.

“This weekend, it really kind of got to me. We’ve been playing basketball since before grade eight and to think now that we’re not going to be playing in a month is crazy and exciting — and also a little bit scary.” U The women’s basketball team won 86-38 and qualified for the Canada West Playoffs. Lee had 18 points and Parkin 13.

Siddall and the ‘Birds, are 0-5 after Concordia University Northwest Cup.

Koby Michaels Sports and Rec Editor

“I was actually a walk-on to the team. I wasn’t recruited or anything like that. I just thought I’d try out and I ended up making it.”

Now Mackenzie Siddall, a second-year kinesiology student from Windsor, Ontario, plays the outfield and pitches for the Thunderbird softball team.

Siddall didn’t come to UBC with a plan to play softball, she came because of the academics and the city.

“When I was younger, I sort of did all of the sports and then softball and hockey stuck for a while. Coming into university, mainly I was focusing on my education, but I thought I could try out for softball because I was a bit better at that than hockey.”

It shouldn’t be too surprising that Siddall ended up playing softball. Her father, Joe Siddall, played catcher for the Montréal Expos, Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers. Over four seasons, he played 73 major league games. He also worked on the Toronto Blue Jays radio and television broadcast.

“He definitely had a big influence,” said Siddall. “I love the game. I’ve been playing my whole life.”

Siddall’s path to UBC has been far from certain. As well as being a walk-on, Siddall learned to play the game with one hand.

Siddall said a lot of people ask her if playing softball is a challenge, but to her it’s second nature and she has’t let anything slow her down. She played in 26 of the ’Birds’ 41 games last season, had a fielding percentage of .966 and allowed just three runs in her six innings pitched.

“I don’t really see myself as different or having disadvantages on the field. I chose to play this sport,” said Siddall. “I don’t totally remember how I taught myself to transfer my glove and all that. That was a long time ago, it’s just become a habit now.”

A teammate recently confessed to Siddall that she hadn’t even

noticed Siddall only had one hand until the second day of tryouts, a testament to Siddall’s prowess on the diamond.

“If you have your mind set on something, do it. You can do anything you set your mind to. It might take a little more work, but at the end of the day, you can do anything you want to do.”

With a laugh, Siddall says people have told her that her parents should have made her play soccer.

“I like the challenge. It’s normal for me now.”

Siddall and the team have been training all year for their season that starts next weekend when they take on Concordia University in Portland, Oregon. The team practices four days a week and has three sessions a week in the weight room.

PHOTO JEREMY JOHNSON-SILVERS/THE UBYSSEY

February 19 marks the first time the team will take the field since their 4-0 exhibition only season in the fall.

“Practice is good, but we are excited to play.”

The softball team, which recently sued UBC to regain its varsity status, had home games in White Rock last year. Of the only two home games, both were in Delta.

Siddall and the ’Birds don’t let their lack of presence on campus get in the way of their training or playing, though.

“It would be cool to have a fan bus or something to come out and support us because we are so excited to have home games this year. I mean, we were on the road the whole time.”

“It’s going to be very interesting this year.” U

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

| SPORTS+REC | 11

VARSITY //

Meet the athletes inducted into the 2016 UBC Hall of Fame

PHOTO COURTESY UBC ATHLETICS

Quarterback Jordan Gagner, runner Jeff Schiebler and basketballer Erica McGuinness.

Lucy Fox Staff Writer

UBC’s athletics department announced six new inductees to the UBC Sports Hall of Fame last week — three athletes, one team and two “builders.” Among those inducted into the athletes category were track and cross country star Jeff Schiebler, quarterback Jordan Gagner and women’s basketball career scoring leader Erica McGuinness.

“I’m very excited, it’s a fantastic honour,” said McGuinness about her induction into the Hall of Fame this year. “I was ... a bit struck when I found out. I definitely wasn’t expecting this.”

“It’s very humbling at this age to even be mentioned this many years

later. It’s pretty cool,” said Gagner.

“When you have kids and they never had a chance to see you play, it’s the only connection they have to your playing career. It’s really awesome to be recognized this way and for the family to be able to share in it.”

ERICA MCGUINNESS WOMEN’S BASKETBALL (20042008) In her five years with the women’s basketball team at UBC, McGuinness led the team to three CIS National Championships and still holds the school’s record for most career points scored in women’s basketball with 2,523 points.

“Over the five year period going from an 18-year-old to a 23-year-old, it’s a big change in anyone’s life,” said

McGuinness when asked about her time with the team. “Individually, there was a ton of growth. But from a program standpoint, we went from not having won a championship since the ’70s to, in my first year, being the underdogs and bringing home a national championship to UBC.” “That era was ... UBC basketball returning to the forefront of women’s basketball across the country. It was neat to be a part of that and see how that developed over time too,” said McGuinness.

When she got to UBC after high school graduation, McGuinness was immediately placed into a small category of students playing both varsity sports and working towards a degree at Sauder. The combination posed its own challenges as there weren’t many student athletes at Sauder at the time. As McGuinness explained, players were forced to really find a balance between school and sport.

For example, McGuinness recalls having to run to her coach’s office to write an exam after winning the Canada West Final in her last year.

“I had to start the exam before everyone had finished writing theirs, which meant I basically had to go up to the office in my uniform.”

“I was happy we won because I was in a good mind frame and felt like I could tackle anything at the time,” said McGuinness. “If it had gone the other way, it would’ve been a tough thing to force myself to do,

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Post graduation, McGuinness continued her basketball career in the Czech Republic for a season before getting settled into a business career here in Vancouver.

When asked if she had any advice for current varsity athletes, McGuinness said the biggest thing is making the most of the experience.

“The teammates you meet, the other individuals you meet in the athletics program, they’re going to be lifelong connections of yours,” McGuinness said. “Make the most of it and try to build as many great relationships as possible while competing for UBC.”

JORDAN GAGNER - FOOTBALL (1984 - 1988) Winner of the Hec Crighton Award for most outstanding player in university football in Canada, Jordan Gagner spent five years on the T-Birds team and led them to backto-back Vanier Cup matches in 1986 and 1987, winning the title in ’86. He also set 12 passing records and was drafted into the CFL. When asked what his most memorable moment was with the team, Gagner said, “Winning the Vanier Cup — for sure 1986. To go undefeated in Canadian play, run the table and cap it off with a Vanier Cup, I have to say that had to be the highlight of the career.”

“Back in those days, students would pelt you with snowballs and ice-balls while you were trying to

play. It was quite the environment,” Gagner said about the 1986 Vanier Cup win. “For us to pull out a last minute win ... it was probably one of the most exciting games that’s [been] played in Canadian university history.”

After UBC, Gagner moved on to play with the Calgary Stampeders, playing both on the special teams and as a quarterback for them before settling into a business career, much like McGuinness.

“I had fun, I learned a lot and I’m glad to say I’m one of the few Canadian quarterbacks that got drafted into the CFL. But for me, it just wasn’t the time to stay in the CFL and it was more about getting my life going at that point.”

Today, Gagner continues to follow the team online from Phoenix, Arizona. He is incredibly proud to be a T-Bird and see the current team doing so well.

“On the one hand, I’m so excited for where the team is going to go, but I realize that four years from now any records I hold are long going to be forgotten and Michael [O’Connor] is going to be the beneficiary of all those passing records,” said Gagner.

“I’m glad that my kids are old enough to see those in print, but he is something special. He is going to break every record that UBC has at this point if he just stays healthy and continues to lead the team.” U Jeff Schiebler could not be reached for comment.

12 | GAMES AND COMICs |

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2016

U

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CROSSWORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1- Bridge; 5- Bad mood; 9- Collide; 14- Dimensions; 15- Top-notch; 16- Artist Matisse; 17- Villain; 19- Sharp; 20- Drunken; 21- Hit with an open hand; 23- Univ. aides; 24- Short essays; 26- Asian inland sea; 28- Pertaining to the kidneys; 30- And others, in Latin; 34- Average; 37- Kill; 39- Rat-___; 41- ___-cone; 42- On ___ with: equal to; 43- Needed to borrow books; 48- ___-mo; 49- Tight swimsuit; 50- Great Lakes tribesmen; 52- Exchange for money; 54- Spatter;

57- Bar bill; 60- Be in front; 62- Shaped like the Big Top; 64- Take by force; 66- Inhabitant of Karachi or Islamabad; 68- Big name in copiers; 69- Answered a charge; 70- Magazine founder Eric; 71- Wynonna’s mother; 72- Trigonometric function; 73- Went through, as the paper; DOWN 1- Flat sound; 2- Embroidery loop; 3- Alchemist’s mercury; 4- Asexual; 5- Makes sorrowful; 6- Neither here ___ there; 7- Supermodel Sastre; 8- I cannot ___ lie; 9- Pancakelike bread of India; 10- VCR button; 11- Sometimes you feel like ___...; 12- Mex. miss; 13- Hastens; 18- Where Hercules slew the lion;

22- Son of Zeus in Greek mythology; 25- Fresh; 27- Actress Turner; 29- Knight’s weapon; 31- Drinks (as a cat); 32- Romance lang.; 33- Dynamic start?; 34- Friends; 35- Take ___ from me; 36- Broccoli ___ (leafy vegetable); 38- Flies high; 40- Very, in Vichy; 44- Long Island university; 45- Portrayal by an actor; 46- Dangerous current; 47- Strikes out; 51- Persian musical instrument; 53- Reindeer herders; 55- Ohio, e.g.; 56- Reddish brown; 57- Rotate; 58- Largest continent; 59- Osso ___; 61- Mustachioed artist; 63- Conked out; 65- CD follower; 67- Barbie’s boyfriend;

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On-Campus publiC leCture presents:

the european migrant Crisis – How should We respond?

Wednesday, February 24, 2016 at 7:00 p.m.

Saint Mark’s College, 5935 Iona Drive, Vancouver (UBC)

How should we respond to the growing refugee crisis worldwide?

Join Church Historian Dr. Agnes de Dreuzy as she outlines Pope Francis’ message of hope for migrants from war-torn countries arriving in droves on the European shores – and now Canada. Open to the general public, this is a FREE public lecture.

Light refreshments will follow.

Limited seating. COMIC RegisterJULIAN Now! YU/THE UBYSSEY www.stmarkscollege.ca | 604-822-4463 COMIC JULIAN YU/THE UBYSSEY